San Francisco Frontiers - Google faces backlash against India data centre

Excavators have swung into action, clearing forest and farmland on the southeast coast for the $15 billion construction of Google's largest data centre outside the United States.

The project at Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh state, a port often called Vizag, is championed by India as a cornerstone of its technological ambitions.

But many residents fear the data centre -- one of several huge new tech sites in Vizag -- will strain water and power resources, damage the environment and bring too few jobs in return.

Farmer Chandala Sadamma told AFP that when she sees the red-earth scars where her plot of mango and cashew trees once stood, "I feel like crying".

She was paid more than $82,000 for the two-acre (0.8-hectare) stretch of land, but the transaction left a bitter taste.

"Some company came and, without showing any respect, they took the land and we accepted it," the 50-year-old said.

Vizag is a landing point for submarine internet cables linking the country to Singapore, so for India, the location of the 600-acre site -- more than 340 football pitches -- is ideal.

The "AI Hub investment is a multi-decade commitment" carrying "an obligation to be a good neighbour", said Alexander Smith, Google's head of infrastructure and energy for Asia-Pacific.

"The watershed, the grid and the communities around our facilities must be better off for our being here."

The Andhra Pradesh government told AFP that in addition to financial compensation, new housing is being built and handed over to people who had lived on the site.

- 'Why here?' -

Governments and tech firms worldwide are spending trillions of dollars on data centres -- boxy buildings stuffed with racks of computer servers that power apps and AI tools.

But the developments have sparked backlash in many countries, with a Finnish authority recently ordering work to halt on two Google data centre sites pending mandatory environmental assessments.

Activists in Andhra Pradesh are also demanding a moratorium on new data centres across the state until independent environmental and social impact evaluations are published.

"The United States has a huge coast... They can simply set it up there," Gutta Rohith of the local campaign group Human Rights Forum told AFP at a meeting of around 150 people.

"Why are they coming here?"

Opposition to data centres, including in the United States, often takes aim at the use of local water resources to cool hot servers down.

Google said it will use "advanced" air cooling technology instead at the India hub, while the state plans six 1.2-gigawatt nuclear power plants as energy demand soars.

Still, water use worries residents, especially given plans for Vizag to become a tech megahub.

"They are saying that Google is being established for the education and employment opportunities of our children," said shopkeeper Gubbala Ramanamma.

But "we are already struggling with water scarcity", the 57-year-old said, standing beside a dry well.

- Land prices -

Google said its data centre will generate $688 million in local economic activity each year and support about 4,200 jobs during construction, with hundreds of specialist jobs once operational in 2028.

Andhra Pradesh's government also said it expects "188,000 direct and indirect jobs to be generated".

But Rohith said the economic benefits would not necessarily trickle down from the warehouse-like facilities.

"We need mass employment and labour-intensive industries, not high-capital industries."

Google is not alone -- a joint venture between Reliance Industries, Brookfield and Digital Realty is investing $11 billion in another AI data centre in Vizag.

Land prices have risen by an average of "more than 45 percent" since the city unveiled its development plans, said E. Ashok Kumar, Visakhapatnam head of the Confederation of Real Estate Developers' Associations of India.

Meanwhile, as AI use accelerates, the world's most populous nation has rolled out incentives to attract big tech companies, including tax cuts.

Despite its widespread internet and app use generating nearly a fifth of the world's digital data, India has only about three percent of global data-centre capacity, government figures show.

Andhra Pradesh Technology Minister Nara Lokesh, in an interview with AFP in February, spoke of investment agreements worth $175 billion involving 760 projects -- and vowed to "execute these projects at a pace that the country has never seen".

Lokesh has also insisted that "residential requirements will always be prioritised over data centres", according to a statement.

"The water needs of our people will always come first."

Visakhapatnam environmental campaigner E.A.S. Sarma, a former senior government official who worked in the power and finance ministries, has called for a water audit by an independent agency.

"Civilisations have vanished because of water shortages," he warned.

Y.Gomez--SFF